A wireless communications network may include a plurality of access points (APs), with each respective access point serving a respective plurality of stations (STAs). For example, in a wireless local area network (WLAN) under the IEEE802.11 standard (commonly referred to as “Wireless Fidelity” or “WiFi”), a grouping including one access point and its associated stations may be referred to as a “basic service set” (BSS). Such a network may include multiple BSSs.
Where multiple stations attempt to communicate with a single access point within a BSS, Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), first introduced under the IEEE802.11e standard, may be used to determine which stations have priority over other stations for use of the finite bandwidth available to the access point, based on the type of communication (“access category” or “AC”) involved. However, depending on the number of stations in the BSS, the EDCA parameters may be insufficient to prevent collisions between stations, resulting in performance degradation. Some degradation situations may involve in a network with multiple access points, some of which may have overlapping coverage areas (“overlapping BSSs” or “OBSSs”).